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  1. #1
    Treeleaf Unsui Shugen's Avatar
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    Genjokoan

    For anyone that has an interest, Ancient Dragon Zen Gate has a series of podcasts about Genjokoan. The presenter is Shohaku Okumura, the author of "Realizing Genjokoan" (on the Treeleaf booklist). They are up to #5 and it's about 9 hours of talks. You can find them by doing a search on iTunes for.....Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Dharma Talks.

    Ron

  2. #2
    as I read it: Dogen says that birth does not become death, but firewood does become ash. Nishiari says if questioned, ash would not believe it was once a piece of solid wood. neither, for that matter would tofu believe it ever had the form of a bean.

    Dogen says and Nishiari agrees that one may think birth/ firewood/ (bean) is before and death/ ash/ (tofu) is after, but this would be a wrong view.
    "although before and after exist, past and future are cut off" says Master Dogen.

    Dogen seems to reference (and acknowledge) the one-way direction of the arrow of time in the cases of birth/death and firewood/ash, saying that after death one isn't born again and that ash cannot become firewood again.

    similarly, he says that winter isn't the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.

    all dharmas appear to hold their positions, except when they don't.

    pete-holmes-don-t-you-get-it-it-was-never-about-the-stick-i-sent-you-there-to-find-y.jpg
    I'm wondering why firewood has this capacity of metamorphising into ash that other materials, states of being and time (seasons, human life) do not.

    more light please? thanks, gassho,

    Robert
    Last edited by Oheso; 04-19-2013 at 02:53 PM. Reason: perplexity
    and neither are they otherwise.


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